You are saying losses are acceptable. "In many cases" does not mean no harm, just harm that may not be measurable by current methods, or harm hidden by psychological defensive mechanisms, or harm not immediately evident in tests and surveys. By saying it's not always "necessarily" harmful, you demean those who've experienced it with no measurable methodology of your own. You have no idea what harm it did cause, no knowledge of what such a person could have achieved in their lifetime without that trauma/those acts perpetrated upon them as children, and any attempt on your part to assert (based on those same studies you dismiss as using terms like "may be", "could have", etc., etc.) are specious at best.
Gee, and how many acts of genocide has that staved off...you know...historically? More sophistry.
When was the last prosecution for adultery in the US with a sentence of death?
When was the last mentally defective child put to death in the US?
Spitting on the street is also still illegal in many states, and how often do those prosecutions occur? And in many muslim countries, while honor killing or pedophilia may be considered illegal, how often is it allowed, overlooked, authorities turn and look away as it still meets sharia law? Hell, sex with young boys is not even considered pedophilia in many countries (like Afghanistan) it's simply considered normal...but it sounds like you have no problem with that.
Philosophy is a wonderful thing, in the abstract. Again, how many instances can you think of where moral relativist thought has staved off or prevented genocide? On the other hand, the philosophies of such moral relativists as Hitler, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao can be directly shown to have resulted in multi-millions of murders and countless examples of genocide...so perhaps you do have a point on the influence of philosophical moral relativism on real harm in the world...
Define harm. That is the salient point here. Because you, or some egghead, states there "may be no harm" does not make it so.
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